Arystffications. By Clementine Stirling Grahame. Edited by John Brown, M.D.
(Edinburgh: Edmonston and Douglas.)—A very curious record of Miss Grahame's wonderful power in assuming characters widely separated from her own both by difference of age and differ- ences of custom and culture. The account of the deception she practised successfully on Lord Jeffrey preserves for us a marvel not only of imitative art, but of inventive humour and of perfect self- control. It is almost a sin that Miss Grahame, with such gifts as these, should not have exercised them as an art on the stage. To take-in successfully her acquaintance was a poor triumph indeed to that which she might have secured, if, without any effort to deceive, she had given herself to the higher past of the art, the task of representing character truly without throwing dust into people's eyes as to the identity of the person. We suppose, in the days when Miss Grahame was young, a lady of culture and position, whatever her genius, would scarcely have been forgiven by her friends for devoting it to the public. It is clear, however, from this amusing little book that Miss Grahame had far more than the mere imitative power of personation, that she could create freely in conformity with her own humorous conceptions of her imaginary character. Whether she had tragic as well as mere humorous dra- matic power, scarcely appears, but she could not have had so much of the latter without some of the former. We have much reason to thank Dr. John Brawn for 'manacling his old friend to give this •very entertaining account of the impersonations which deceived and delighted such men as Lord Jeffrey and Sir Walter Scott.
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